Lawsuits challenge abortion restrictions in 3 states

Ralph Mccoy | December 1, 2016, 2:10

Clinics in Springfield and Joplin could provide abortions if activists succeed in challenging two Missouri restrictions.

In Missouri, providers are subject to almost identical provisions as the Texas requirements that were struck down: providers must have admitting privileges and clinics must be ambulatory surgical centers.

Coupled with a law in Missouri that requires women to wait 72 hours before an abortion, it forces them to take on added travel costs, Dreith said. Missouri was the first state in the nation to adopt both laws.

The three simultaneous lawsuits announced today challenge medically unnecessary abortion restrictions in Alaska, Missouri, and North Carolina.

The Supreme Court's Whole Woman's Health decision also affirmed that states can not pass sham restrictions on abortion; less than one day after issuing their ruling in Whole Woman's Health, the Supreme Court refused to review similar clinic shutdown laws from MS and Wisconsin that had been invalidated by lower courts that found they imposed on undue burden on women seeking abortions.

Planned Parenthood, founded in 1916 by eugenicist Margaret Sanger, performs over 300,000 abortions per year in the United States - making it the country's largest abortion provider. Planned Parenthood and another independent clinic offer abortions in Overland Park.

Supporters say they are meant to protect women's health, but critics contend they are thinly veiled attempts to block women's access to abortions. "Today's filings are a major step in the fight to ensure all women can get safe and legal abortions in their own communities when they need them", she said.

The Planned Parenthood affiliate serving the Kansas City area and Kansas and Oklahoma is listed as the other plaintiff in the suit, filed in federal court in Jefferson City, along with Dr. Ronald N. Yeomans who provides abortions in Kansas for Planned Parenthood and wants to provide the services in Missouri.

The lawsuit, filed by Planned Parenthood Great Plains and Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region, notes that these two provisions resemble rules in Texas that the U.S.

But both of the Kansas laws are temporarily enjoined pending a final decision in court, meaning the abortion clinics and providers do not have to comply with those laws, pending the final decision. "These laws are unsafe, unjust, and unconstitutional - and they will come down". "However, there has been no legal movement in those cases at this time". A spokeswoman for Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster said the state had not yet been served, and North Carolina did not immediately respond to a request for comment.